'This year there has been a major push for CBD-only legislation. Individuals and groups are lobbying for the right to use this seemingly magical “non-psychoactive” substance found in the dreaded cannabis plant. These people are claiming that CBD does the same job as THC if not better. These claims of a panacea are falling like music upon conservative politicians’ ears.

Finally there is a way they can compromise with the people’s demands and allow certain zero to low-THC, high-CBD cannabis plants to be grown and utilized without allowing the use of the highly stigmatized compound that gets people high.

The biggest claim is that CBD is non-psychoactive. THC is again being compared to psychedelic substances like psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) for the high associated with the decarboxylated form of THC.

Yes, THC is psychotropic; it can alter the perception and mental processing of a user in many different ways. Ninety-nine percent of the time, these effects are found to be beneficial for the user. THC delivers the mental effects by binding to endocannabinoid receptors in the brain. Scientifically speaking, CBD is technically psychoactive in the sense that is has effects on the brain, because are receptors that CBD binds to in the brain much like THC.

CBD-only legislation is not all encompassing but rather discriminatory; not all people receive benefits from this compound alone. Many patients, children like my daughter, Brave Mykayla Comstock and pediatric cannabis patient Landon Riddle rely on THC rich medications to treat not only their conditions, but the side effects of the toxic pharmaceuticals they are required to take. Both children share a diagnosis of T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and both children use cannabis oil. THC rich preparations of cannabis not only relieve all of the side effects of chemotherapy, but also cause apoptosis of malignant cells, which effectively helps to cure cancer. The entire time these children are undergoing cannabinoid therapy, they experience the “high” delivered by THC and their quality of life is better because of it.

Those who denounce the benefits of THC as a medicine because of a “high” must realize that they are then forced to take the same position against opiate based medications for children and adults. I had this debate with an oncologist who would have rather had us give Mykayla opiate based medications for pain and symptom relief over cannabis oil even though the opiate based medications come with a risk of overdose and death. Cannabis gives Mykayla a quality of life other pediatric cancer patients don’t have safe access to."

What do you think about giving children THC? Tell us in the comments below.

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“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”

Sativum, Sativus, and Sativa are Latin botanical adjectives meaning cultivated, used to designate certain seed-grown domestic crops. Sativa is derived from the Latin satum, which is the supine of the verb serō meaning to sow. serō itself comes from the Proto-Indo-European language *seh₁, which gave also English sow and German sähen. The English word ‘season’ derives also from satum, as ‘appropriate time for sowing’, through the old French ‘saison’. Sativa ends in -a, because it is the feminine form of the adjective, but masculine (-us) and neuter (-um) endings are used to agree with the gender of the nouns they modify, for example, Crocus sativus – Saffron (masculine) and Pisum sativum– Pea (neuter).